The reason for the title is because this award should make you reflect on five bloggers who have been an encouragement, a source of love, impacted you in some way, and have been a Godly example to you. Five Bloggers who when you reflect on them you get a sense of pride and joy… of knowing them and being blessed by them.

A few days ago Kim from The Upward Call posted an entry reflecting on blogs that have been a blessing to her and I was touched by the kind things that she wrote about Blakeyblog and how she has been encouraged by posts here. The idea of this award is simply to name 5 bloggers who are an encouragement to me. I don’t want anyone to have to participate but if you would like to please see Kim’s link for the rules of how to do so or just copy what I’ve done here.

There are so many blogs that are just all fluff and personality tests and one memo after another. It’s actually hard to find the ones where you can read, as Carla Rolfe says– “dedicated, godly people blogging their hearts out” for the Lord. There are some and they have been an inspiration to me in my own walk with the Lord. I hope you will check them out and that they will become an encouragement to you too!

1) Bobby Blakey. My husband has been blogging with his two friends over at “Godsong Music” for a couple of years now. He writes a lot about ministry at our church and every entry is practical as Bobby is very good at writing with both encouragement and challenge to hear and do God’s Word. I hope you will check out his most recent entry about prayer.

2) Kim Shay. I started reading “The Upward Call” about three years ago and since then I’ve read it nearly every day. She lives in Canada and has three children junior high and high school aged. I love how she writes about her family, books she is reading, and especially Biblical womanhood. She has a passion for women to be students of God’s Word and to apply themselves to doctrines and theology. I think she could write a great book called “Theology for Girls” to motivate women to grow in their knowledge of God.

3) Paul Tripp. Author of one of my favorite books–War of Words–started a blog back in November and every post has been one sharpening entry after another. Dr. Tripp lives back in Philadelphia and works with the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation a dynamic ministry of Biblical Counseling. He’s been doing a series through Psalm 51 which is so good that if you haven’t been reading his blog it’s worth going into the archives and being encouraged by his in-depth look into this chapter.

4) Elle from “A Complete Thought.“ I’ve been reading Elle’s blog for about three months and her writing is always engaging and substantial. Her writing is personal, I love the stories about her days or family and she has a great sense of humor! But she also writes about her Bible study and as she shares her conviction from God’s Word I always come away challenged.

5) Steve Camp. Anyone who has read just one post at “Camp on This” knows that Steve Camp’s writing is intense. He isn’t afraid to bring controversial topics out into the open, say it how it needs to be said and get into the discussion in his comment section. One thing I really enjoy about Steve’s blog is how he reflects on other writings from the Puritans, John MacArthur, John Piper and others. My favorite posts are the “Your Weekly Dose of the Gospel” entries. I’d encourage you to check this blog out, just fasten your seatbelt first, Steve is hard core.

There has definitely been a shortage of blogging for me the last two weeks. My husband is high school youth pastor at our church and right now we are gearing up for small groups, backyard BBQs, trip to Mexico and the biggest event will be summer camp the end of July. We will be putting on our own camp called Revival 07 and boy, does it take a lot of work to pull something like this off! I am head of the camp kitchen and have spent the last two weeks making endless lists and estimations, researching cooking equipment and creating menus. I feel like I’m on the Food Network show Dinner Impossible, but instead of one huge meal to cater, my team and I are providing 3 meals a day for 150 people for 7 days! It will be a blast! I’m really looking forward to that week, but the prep for it is taking time I would normally spend in the blog world…

With my summer goal, I’m closing in on the last few verses of James chapter 1. Earlier in the week I was working on verses 22-25

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

I love James’ analogy of the mirror. As I was working at memorizing these verses I thought of how sometimes when I’m out I’ll catch my reflection in a mirror or window and notice that my hair is poofing out or that I had something in my teeth. After I catch that glimpse of the problem I don’t just forget about it, I immediately work to fix it.

It would be incredible if every time we opened our Bibles we were looking for something to do once we closed it. Sometimes we can be so spiritually lazy and I wonder if it is because we think no one notices. People can only see what is going on outside of us, they don’t know our hearts, so maybe it doesn’t matter if we are doers or not. What a dangerous deception because God looks past all the surface distractions straight into our hearts. He knows in an instant if we are in His Word each day and if we really take it to heart and do it or not. When we look into God’s Word, He tells us what we need to change in our lives and we need to be careful that we don’t ignore or procrastinate on what we see in the reflection. We should never come away from God’s Word unchanged.

Elle from A Complete Thought just tagged me for a fun food meme, which is great because I love food, really enjoy cooking and am a big time food network junkie. So here are the rules:

1. Link to name of person that tagged you.
2. Include state and country you live in.
3. List top 5 favorite local restaurants.
4. Tag 5 other people and let them know they’ve been tagged.

I live in California, USA.

1) P.F. Changs–my favorite restaurant, serves awesome Chinese food. I’m not sure how authentic it is but they have an amazing Almond Cashew Chicken and Chicken Lettuce Wraps.

2) Corner Bakery Cafe is the place I’m into right now. A little pricey for just a sandwich and chips–it’s a little bit of a snobby deli. The food is yummy and healthy–fresh sandwiches, paninis, salads and fruit. My favorite is the Uptown Turkey Sandwich.

3) Chipotle is a little chain of Mexican restaurants that have delicious guacamole, gigantic burritos and my favorite the burrito bowl–all the ingredients without the tortilla. So good!

4) Eric’s Deli Cafe is a northern California restaurant with all fresh sandwiches and yummy soups. I used to go to this place at least once a week when we lived up north. This is the home style version of Corner Bakery Cafe.

5) Rainforest Cafe is the all time toddler friendly restaurant! The food is pretty good, and the ambiance is fun and keeps kids attention. The whole place is covered in foliage and features realistic looking life-size gorillas, elephants, monkeys who all come to life ever 20 minutes or so. Several huge aquariums and water fountains make this place a dining experience!

Those are my top picks and here are my picks to be tagged to do this memo on their blogs! Kim at Upward Call, Diane from Aim to Please Him, Dawn from Spanish Morning, Veronica Whitley, and my sister, Alicia.

Summer is in full swing for me. I’m two weeks in to my summer goal and working hard to finish memorizing the first chapter of James by the end of this weekend. How are your goals going? I would love to hear updates!

We’ve had amazing 80-degree weather perfect for using our new BBQ and for hitting up the pool. I’ve been going to Disneyland all the chances I can get since my pass is blocked out the whole month of July. We went twice this weekend. I realize that may sound totally ridiculous but it is so fun taking Tyler on the Winne the Pooh ride! He absolutely loves it! Clapping his hands and pointing out Pooh and Tigger. The funniest part is at the end of the ride when he just keeps saying, “more pooh” over and over and then finally says, “pleeeese?”

I’ve been thinking about righteousness. Bobby preached from Proverbs 4:18-27 showing the night and day contrast between the righteous and the wicked (Click here to listen to the sermon!). What really stood out to me was how hard we try to make middle ground. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to sound judgmental or make people feel bad. Maybe we don’t want the conviction, but most people try to make a big middle road instead of approaching life with God’s either/or perspective–Either righteous, or wicked.

One thing Bobby said really stood out to me and I’ve been mulling over it the last two days. He said that God will never look at someone and think, “I don’t know about this person, they aren’t bad, but they aren’t good. Heaven or hell…hmmm…this is a tough one.” God sees past all the superficialities, the masks, the good works–straight into the heart. In an instant God knows if we are right with Him or not.

In our daily Bible reading we read Psalm 11 today and I was so encouraged when I got to verse 7.

I honestly never think, “I need to be righteous.” I guess in my mind the words that come to mind tend to be–obedient, holy, or pure. But “righteousness” is something I need to pursue. It simply means doing what is right. God loves righteousness because He is the perfect standard of what is right. Bobby’s statement and this Psalm really challenged me to be thinking about God’s law and always be examining if my heart is right in respect to it. I really like the promise in Psalm 11:7, that being righteous is what will draw me nearer to God because His countenance beholds the upright. What a motivation!

My husband is the high school youth pastor at our church and often people ask me questions about our lifestyle. They say, “Do you feel like you live in a fishbowl?” “You must long for a time when you can just have a normal life…” “Ministry life must be exhausting, when do you get a break?” “I could never do full-time ministry.”

It’s not hard to see that there is an overall misunderstanding about the meaning of the word and the heart behind it. When people hear the word “ministry” some think–minister, pastor or lay person in a church setting. Some people think of being in charge of a program or formal teaching or counseling roles. Some people ask, “When were you called to the ministry?” But really God has called each of His children to a life of ministry. Full-time, lifestyle ministry. That scares some people. They don’t like the idea that they might have to be “on” 24/7. They would rather only do ministry the first Sunday of every month. Ministry is so much more than we think it is–and it if you are a Christian, consider yourself called!

min·is·try
noun

a person or thing through which something is accomplished

What a definition! Think about this in spiritual terms. What if you were that person and the “something” being accomplished was God’s plan. That is awesome! We are holding to a mish-mosh definition of ministry, but if we broke it down it is really this simple. As I considered this definition in light of 1 Peter 4:10 I saw all the common excuses for lack of ministry eliminated.

If you are a Christian, you have a gift. God expects you to make good use of it by edifying other Christians. I like how Paul uses the word “steward” because this is a good reminder that whatever abilities and gifts we have do not belong to us. God has entrusted them to us for the benefit of His church and to be used for His glory.

A book that has really sparked a passion for my own personal ministry is Paul Tripp’s Instruments In The Redeemer’s Hands. One excellent quote says this–

Scripture declares that personal transformation takes place as our hearts are changed by God’s grace and our minds are renewed by the Holy Spirit. We don’t change anyone; it is the work of the Redeemer. We are simply His instruments.

The problem is that most of us think that God is carrying around a very small toolbox! A successful carpenter uses many tools, each one designed for a particular job. God has a huge toolbox, and his principal tools are his children. Sadly, many people in the church do not see themselves this way. They think of ministry as something for the paid professional. When they think of their own involvement, they don’t think very far beyond saying a prayer or making a meal. Yet their adoption into God’s family was also a call to ministry…

The overall biblical model is this: God transforms people’s lives as people bring his Word to others.

Instruments In the Redeemer’s Hands, 18-19

This quote just makes me so excited! As you and I are faithful to bring God’s Word to others faithfully ministering our gifts to others–that is how God will change someone else’s life–what an awesome reality!
All too often people succumb to excuses–

“I’m too busy to commit to a certain program at my church.”
“I don’t know how to cook so I can’t take meals to someone.”
“I don’t have time for my own prayer time let alone praying for people in my church.”
“I’m too young.”
“I have young children, I can’t do anything on top of taking care of them.”
“I don’t know how to disciple someone.”

Even though some of these sound legitimate, none of them excuse us from regularly exercising our gifts to edify the people around us. We are tools that God will use to accomplish something in someone else. Are we being faithful to bring His Word to others? We all have different gifts so ministering them will look different in each of our lives. But spiritually encouraging the people in our lives should be a daily practice that we take seriously because we consider ourselves called to ministry.